ISLAMABAD: National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has approved an increase in the price of electricity by Rs 1.71 per unit on account of Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) for the month of August 2023 and issued a notification to this regard.
According to NEPRA’s notification, the approved tariff hike under the head FCA of August 2023 will be shown separately on consumers’ bills and the effects of this increase in electricity price will be reflected in the bills of October 2023.
The NEPRA’s notification also states that the hike will not apply to Lifeline and K-Electric customers.
According to the sources, the fuel charges adjustment (FCA) of August will have an additional burden of approximately Rs 31 billion on the consumers of power distribution companies (DISCOs). This surge in power tariff is set to impact all consumer categories, sources added.
Earlier, CPPA on behalf of power distribution companies (DISCOs) except K-Electric asked the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) to approve 1.8290 per kilowatt hour (kWh) hike in the power tariff on account of fuel charges adjustment (FCA) for the month of August 2023.
On Wednesday (27th September 2023), NEPRA’s hearing was held on the application of Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) under the chairmanship of Waseem Mukhtar wherein NEPRA’s Members of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also participated. However, the NEPRA did not take any decision.
The CPPA, in its application, submitted that the total electricity generated with various fuels in the month of August was recorded at 15,959 GWh, at a price of Rs8.2654 per unit. The total cost of energy was Rs131,910 million.
The power generation with hydel source was 6,006GWh (giga watt per hour) constituting 37.63 per cent while power production with coal-fired power plants was 2,357 GWh (local + imported coal: 1,638+ 719GWh) which was 14.77 per cent of the total generation at a price of Rs20.1430 per unit and power generation with RFO was 649 GWh 4.51 per cent of total generation calculated at Rs33.3227 per unit.
Similarly, the power generation from gas-based power plants was 1,214 GWh, 7.60 per cent of the total generation, totaling Rs13.2190 per unit and the generation from Re-gasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) was 2,741 GWh, which was 17.17 per cent of total generation, at Rs23.7148 per unit.
Likewise, power production from bagasse recorded at 38 GWh, the price of which has been calculated at Rs5.9822 per unit. The electricity generated from wind was recorded at 8.5 GWh, 5.05 per cent of total generation and solar at 84 GWh, 0.53 per cent of the total generation in August 2023.
Moreover, electricity generation from nuclear sources was 2,040GWh which came out at Rs1.1725 per unit, 12.79 per cent of the total generation, and electricity imported from Iran was 26 GWh that amounted to Rs25.0981 per unit, 0.16 per cent of the total power generation in the said month.
It is also learnt from the data submitted by the CCPA-G with NEPRA that net electricity delivered to DISCOs in August 2023 was 15,472 GWh (96.95pc) at a rate of Rs8.4746 per unit, total price of which was Rs131,118 million.
The CPPA-G in its tariff adjustment request advocated that the reference fuel charges for August 2023 were fixed at Rs 6.6457 per unit while the actual fuel charges were recorded at Rs8.4747 per unit. So an increase of Rs 1.8290 per unit in the power tariff should be made for the month of August under FCA mechanism. However, NEPRA on Thursday approved an increase of Rs 1.71/unit in electricity price for the consumers of DISCOS except K-Electric under FCA of August 2023.
